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inkblackorchid · 11 months

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What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 1)

*deep breath* Hiiiiiiii.

After sitting on this for ages, I finally decided to make the Crow post. And because this ended up getting stupidly long, I decided to turn this into part one of two, maybe three, we'll see (which I honestly should have done with the Aki posts too, but oh well). So let me quickly make it clear what I'm about here: This analysis is not meant to convince people who hate Crow to change their mind. It is also not meant to dissuade people who love Crow from doing so. Instead, I wanna look at how Crow was handled during the show (up until the end of the DS arc for now, I'll dive into the rest later) and give my own take on why he developed the way he did and turned into such a polarising character. Also, disclaimer, despite the fact that I'll be making an effort to analyse things objectively, I am a mere human and obviously not the one and only expert on all things 5Ds. My only claim to knowledge here is that I've watched 5Ds several times now, love the show and its characters deeply, and like to think I have a decent amount of media literacy. Also, I take no responsibility for the length of this post. Despite me splitting things up, it's stupidly, exhaustingly long. Like, very, very long. So. Let's hop to it, shall we?

Before I get into the meat of things, there's one more thing I would like to get out of the way: I know plenty of people, even now, so long after the show ended, would answer the question of "what happened with Crow, anyway" with something along the lines of "well Blackwings got so popular" or "well Aki's VA got pregnant so Crow stole her spotlight" and I need to burst some people's bubbles here because no. Neither of these things are true. Nor is the infamous "well Crow was meant to be the main villain", actually! And I could go into all of that here, but that would be a whole post of its own for each topic, and luckily, someone else has already done all of that work. I direct you to two posts over on Reddit from @mbg159, who did an absurd amount of digging to comprehensively disprove two of the 5Ds fandom's favourite scapegoat theories:

No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, and most certainly not the boss of the dark signers.

No, Aki being sidelined and suddenly having less presence in the narrative than him was not because her VA got pregnant.

I really don't want this to come off as an "assigned reading"-thing, but it is so, so important to keep these things in mind when looking at Crow, and honestly? I'm just tired of these rumours at this point. It's been 12 years since the show ended, we don't need to keep believing this nonsense. And the posts linked above aren't crackpot theories or anything of the sort—they provide sources all over and all of the links still work. If you still can't be bothered to read them (they are long, yes), then at least take away this tl;dr: Crow allegedly having been planned as a villain doesn't work because there is no evidence that supports it, and both his spike in screentime being caused by the Blackwings' popularity and him "taking Aki's spot" because her VA got pregnant make zero sense because they simply don't match up with the production timeline of the show. It is literally impossible for either of these things to be true. (And believe me, I am as mad as anyone that Aki got shafted, maybe even madder than the average fan, but if it doesn't add up, it simply doesn't add up and there were no regrettable outside influences, someone just actively made shitty writing decisions and that's that.) So please. It has been 12 years. Forget this stuff. Ditch it. Let it die. Because I'm not here to spin conspiracy theories, I'm here to analyse the writing of the show as best I'm able. Okay? Okay.

Now, for the good part. Shall we start with some facts? Let's start with some facts.

Crow is introduced to the audience in episode 30, shortly after the dark signers arc kicks off. And considering that he later ends up as one of the main characters, arguably even the third most important character in the show after Yusei and Jack, this immediately stands out. For reference, the rest of the signer group is introduced within the first 14 episodes of the show. Even Aki, who is the last signer to be introduced, takes less than half the number of episodes Crow does to finally make her debut. And I don't think you could blame anyone for finding this weird. 30 episodes, even in a show with a relatively short episode length like 5Ds, is an absurd amount of time for a protagonist to get introduced. As for how he's introduced to us...

We get the gist of his character pretty quickly. He's a daredevil, he's used to flipping sector security the bird (pun not intended), he's got a soft spot for kids, and he knows Yusei well—well enough for the two of them to tag-duel some security officers almost immediately after not seeing each other for an undefined amount of time, which, if you know anything about yugioh, says it all.

(Pictured: two lads getting up to Shenanigans.)

There is history there. These two know each other's decks. They know how each the other plays. They can work together immediately and seamlessly. This is a big deal. Aaaaannd... It immediately begs some questions: If this guy knows Yusei so well, and they are really close friends, why the hell is he only showing up now? Why wasn't he helping Yusei put together his duel runner? Why didn't he help him stick it to sector security at the start? Why weren't they in contact?

The thing is, the show never really answers any of that. At least not properly. We can only read between the lines as to why Crow wasn't with Yusei from the start. (At least in-universe. Irl, it's easy enough to guess that Crow was not there at the start of the show because the writers at first didn't think they'd be putting this side character Takahashi originally came up with into the show.) Which brings me to the Enforcers. (Side note: As a sub watcher, I know the Japanese name is Team Satisfaction and I know Kiryu's catchphrase works a million times better with that name, but "Team Satisfaction" will always sound like a boyband name to me and I like to mix and match the sub and dub names based on what I like better on an individual basis anyway, please bear with me.) And before I properly open that can of worms, I feel the need to point something out: After Crow made his debut in episode 30 and got the opportunity to show off his duelling a bit during episodes 30-31, we are immediately introduced to Kiryu/Kalin at the end of episode 32. What this means for Crow is that he has zero backstory at this point and his character had zero time to settle. His only tie to the main story, as far as the audience is concerned, is that he's Yusei's friend from however long ago, and aside from that, he's only got two other things going to endear him to viewers: 1. he stands up to sector security (whom the first season did a pretty good job of establishing as pigs) and 2. he cares for abandoned children. He gets a "Save the Cat" moment and a tie to the main character, and that's it. Just to put that into perspective, we know the most important points of all the other signers' backstories by that point. Jack and Yusei's deal is made obvious to us within the first five episodes; the twins, though the narrative largely only spares them breadcrumbs, anyway, at least have that bit about Ruka/Luna having been in a coma at one point and having a connection to the spirit world shown during episodes 18-19; and though it once again takes Aki the longest to reveal what she's all about, we at least have a good idea of why she is the way she is by episode 24, and we get the icing on the cake of her traumatic past during the narratively excellent duel in episodes 40-41 (no, I will never shut up about how much I love this duel). Plus, she arguably has the most complicated backstory, so it's no surprise that it takes longer to reveal. But here's where the Enforcers come in again.

(And here we see the arguably most deranged rat bastard of a man (affectionate) in the entire show. But hey, at least he has an exquisite sense for dramatics.)

As far as backstory for Crow is concerned, the Enforcers drama initially revealed during episodes 33-35 is as much as we get for him after his introduction. His later duel with dark signer!Bommer/Greiger during episodes 51-53 offers a bit more, but more on that later. First, I want to preface this by saying that I don't think it was a coincidence that Crow and Kiryu/Kalin were introduced so shortly after one another. Because at this point in the story, I think Crow's main role is to add a counterweight to Kiryu/Kalin. To Crow, whatever happened with the Enforcers was evidently not enough to break the friendship between him and Yusei—they're still close and get along well. And then we have Kiryu/Kalin—for him, whatever happened with the Enforcers was a big deal and he's more than a little resentful about it, to the point of wanting to murder Yusei in revenge. (It is also noteworthy that this is the first thing that ever calls Yusei's character into question, because here is a guy who evidently knew him well once and absolutely loathes him, and it's clearly not because of his Satellite upbringing, his marker, or any of the stuff the other antagonists up until this point hated him for. Yusei fucked something up here. Big time. But let's not get sidetracked.) So, what does the Enforcer drama tell us about Crow, anyway? Frankly, not much. We learn two things: One, same as Yusei and Jack, Crow was all for the "liberating Satellite"-thing at first. Two (and this one's way spicier), unlike Yusei, he had the guts to ditch Kiryu/Kalin when it became clear he was willing to go too far. He was even the first to do it. (And I'd argue that if Crow hadn't walked away, Jack wouldn't have, either, but the relationship between these two is a whole other funky can of worms.)

(I love how Yusei grabs him like a naughty cat every time Crow gets worked up.)

The thing is, I wish I could say this tells us something integral to Crow's character, but looking at the rest of the show... it kind of doesn't. Implicitly, it shows us that he draws the line somewhere, and where people he loves doing absolutely insane things is concerned, he does it sooner than Yusei. It's just that this is never brought up again. And as far as his introduction is concerned, this, the first dark signer!Kiryu/Kalin duel, and him rushing to get Yusei to Martha's on his runner is the last we see of Crow for a while.

(For the love of all that's good and holy, why on earth did he deposit Yusei on his runner like that, shrapnel-stab-wound-side down?? Did he pull out the biggest piece of shrapnel before doing this? How did Yusei's legs not drag on the asphalt? Why did nobody think to tie something around his stomach to slow down the bleeding? Ok I need to calm down I'm overthinking this)

After this bit, the signers are pulled centre stage for a while—which was to be expected, for one, and also seems like the right call, writing-wise. After all, they're the ones the audience expects to save the day. As far as viewers are concerned at this point, Crow is just Some Dude who happens to be good friends with Yusei. We've had characters like this before. Hell, the opening episode of 5Ds introduced us to a whole four of them, and for all we know, Crow could have a first been intended to be precisely that, just another Satellite side character, who just so happens to have ties to the Enforcers-debacle that the others don't.

However. Where the writing for Crow as a character, especially considering where he ends up later, is concerned, this looks like less of a smart move. Because the "set-up" (if you can even call it that) to make Crow a protagonist later is... shaky, to say the least. And I'll be frank with you, I'm pretty sure this is because Crow was intended to be neither a dark signer nor a signer (which the Reddit post about him I linked above also proposes). In other words, it was never meant to be set-up in the first place. Considering how the show developed and turned him into a protagonist later, though, I can't help but wonder how Crow could have been written differently to make him actually slot in well with the rest of the signers without stepping on many people's toes. But before we dive into hypotheticals, let's continue looking at what they did with him first.

We see him between episodes 30 and 35, and then he briefly poofs out of existence until episodes 43-44 where he... mistakes Yaeger/Lazar for a dark signer and has a duel with no outcome against him, which only barely serves to keep him relevant.

(The face of a dark mastermind, servant of an ancient, immeasurable evil. Truly.)

Though him outmanoeuvring the vice director despite all the data he has on him shows him to be a cunning duellist, it feels a bit like a throwaway episode, like the show saying "oh yeah wait don't forget that this guy's also there". Crow exists in the narrative—and gets to duel, which sets him apart from Yusei's other Satellite friends—but he does nothing to advance the plot, despite getting whole episode segments dedicated solely to what he's currently getting up to. He's just kind of there, and it doesn't help to set up any of what comes later, except the idea that he can and will fight a dark signer if he finds one, maybe. But the thing is, Crow vanishes after this duel. Literally.

(Run, bird boy, run! Or, uh... drive?)

And look. The way this moment looks? With the black fog literally catching back up to Crow on-screen? And with what he says, swearing that he won't die here, which is strikingly similar to how the other dark signers refused to die, swearing themselves to revenge instead? I get why people thought this would be the moment Crow died and turned into a dark signer himself. But the thing is, even without all the hints pointing to Goodwin instead of him from the start (Goodwin speaks about being willing to sacrifice Satellite within the first ten episodes, the condor is literally on his shirt, ffs, and the corresponding geoglyph is shown in the background when he talks about the Nazca Lines, I am not making this up), Crow becoming a dark signer makes zero sense because it doesn't fit his character. He has no motivation to become a dark signer, because the dark signers ultimately aim to destroy Satellite. And even with what little the audience knows about Crow at this point, it is crystal clear that Crow would never destroy Satellite, not to speak of sacrificing the children he cares for to summon an Earthbound Immortal. It simply doesn't work, because his character doesn't work like that. Crow is deeply protective of Satellite—as his devotion to making it better during the Enforcer days shows—and he is even more fiercely protective of the kids he takes care of. Destroying either or both to turn the world into a literal hellscape instead goes against everything we've seen him say and do up until this point.

However, this is where we have to address the refrigerator in the room.

(Ah yes. The fridge for Crow. The fridge for Crow that was there from the start. The fridge that Crow totally had the time to curl up and hide inside of. The fridge specifically for Crow. Crow's fridge.)

Every time I watch this moment, I don't know whether to laugh like a maniac or heave the biggest sigh of my life. Even when you're being extremely generous with the show and its writing, there is no getting around the fact that this is as though someone wrote DEUS EX MACHINA all across the screen in bold, red letters. And again, I get why people thought this was the moment where the writers decided to do a 180 and turn Crow into a good guy instead of a dark signer due to the popularity of his cards or whatever. The production timeline still doesn't add up, but I get it. And cards or no cards, you can tell that someone made an out-of-left-field decision in Crow's writing for this moment to exist, because the way things were going for him before, purely based on visual evidence, it looked more like he was going to be another victim of the ominous black fog here, for someone (presumably Yusei) to have an angsty moment about later. (Or, hell, perhaps somewhere around this point, they decided that the final boss duel against Rex Goodwin would be a 3v1 turbo duel, which Aki, despite being a kickass duellist, categorically couldn't participate in because she doesn't have a license at this point! It could have been as simple as that.) To contextualise this, between Crow vanishing and him reappearing here, 7 whole episodes pass. He vanishes in episode 44 and reappears in episode 51. His saving grace is that all the duels in between canonically take place within the same night, which is why it's technically not unrealistic for him to be stuck in a fridge for a few hours. Technically. Ok, but what does he reappear for? Well, to have his very own dark signer duel, of course.

(Not pictured: Bommer's hilariously large runner.)

This is the first time we get to see Crow actively contributing to the larger plot, and in light of where he ends up later, I think this duel does a world of good for him. Firstly, it offers us more backstory (though still less than for the other signers), establishing why Crow's so attached to his orphans, why he's so close to Yusei, and throwing in tidbits like how he learned to read from duel monsters cards. It's "Save the Cat" moments all over, and it also does two other things well: For one, this is the only dark signer duel we get where both parties technically have the exact same goal—revenge. Bommer wants to avenge his hometown, Crow his kids. This duel, more than anything else, shows us that Crow could have become a dark signer—in a world where doing so didn't also mean destroying Satellite and killing his kids. Plus, it's the only duel against a dark signer we get that is fought and won by someone who, at this point, is not a signer. And this is especially important to me because it supports themes the show already began establishing with Rudger/Roman Goodwin and continues much later with Team Ragnarok and the likes: Fate is bullshit, the future is not set in stone, it is determined by what we do here and now and we have to fight to make it better. Therefore, contrary to what "fate" would dictate, Bommer/Greiger is not beaten by a signer. He's beaten by Crow. This is an extremely solid bit of writing that 100% supports the show's themes. (Arguably, this duel might have been even more solid if Crow hadn't actually turned into a signer, because him as a non-signer who stayed a non-signer would have been an even bigger "fuck you" to fate than him becoming the replacement fifth signer later.)

And, well, we know where Crow ends up after that. Seeing as he's been freed from fridge-prison and seeing as Aki doesn't have a runner yet, but the final boss duel is set up as a turbo duel, he joins the fray next to Yusei and Jack to fight Rex Goodwin. And the only thing this duel does for Crow character-wise is bring the whole Daedalus Bridge story full circle.

Which. Let me swing back to that for a second and put on my extra big nerd glasses because wouldn't you know it, I'm a greek mythology nerd and when I hear the name "Daedalus", I perk up like a dog that just spotted a piece of ham.

(Pictured: The least OSHA compliant bridge in the world, probably.)

So. As not to derail this with greek mythology, the short version of the Daedalus myth, as far as it's relevant here, for people who don't know it: Daedalus was a famed architect of Crete, who (among other things) built the labyrinth that kept the Minotaur imprisoned. What he also built was a pair of functional, sort-of mechanical wings held together by wax (because he needed to make a quick getaway at some point, but let's not go there). And he had a son: Icarus. Who famously donned the wings his father built and flew too close to the sun, which made the wax holding the wings together melt, causing him to fall into the sea and die, leaving his father to grieve.

I don't think it's hard to see how the Daedalus-Icarus story connects to the bridge. The Daedalus bridge is named after the genius inventor, reaches into the sky towards the sun, and our mechanical wings in this case are the wings attached first to Rex Goodwin's duel runner and then, you guessed it, the Blackbird. This would lead us to liken Rex Goodwin, of all people, to Icarus, then. And I'd argue the comparison works, too. See, the reason for which Goodwin actually built the bridge at first is left completely up in the air. We know that Crow believes a version wherein the "legendary duellist" wanted to build that bridge to reunite Satellite and the city—and the thing is, for all we know, that might be true. Goodwin never contradicts it, he only claims he was doing it to "oppose destiny" (read: follow Rudger/Roman's plan to take his brother's mark, assemble the signers and fight and win against the dark signers instead of having someone bear both a dark signer and a signer mark on themselves).

(Since when does becoming a dark signer make people swole, anyway? Where was that beef when Kiryu became a dark signer?)

Perhaps along the way, he thought he might as well reunite Satellite with the city, since things were already going to hell there. (Before he became director, which I find very interesting. Did the city decide immediately after the explosion that Satellite was contaminated and needed to be isolated or some such? Were efforts made to reunite city people with their relatives who might now have been stranded in Satellite? Did MIDS, hoping to cover up their mistake, lobby for cutting the Satellite off from the city? Was corruption involved? So many questions...) Or perhaps he simply built the bridge for himself, to get back to civilisation in order to follow his brother's plan and everyone else just interpreted it differently. It matters little—the only thing that matters is how Crow sees it. To him, building the bridge was obviously an attempt to reach the city, despite how hopeless things in Satellite seemed, and Goodwin's final ditch effort to jump off the bridge and "fly" on his duel runner was an act of defiance that turned him into a legend. Most importantly, both these things connect to freedom for Crow. Freedom from the misery in Satellite, freedom from sector security, and arguably, freedom from destiny. But then Goodwin tells him that all building the Daedalus Bridge and jumping off it did for him was teach him that destiny is inevitable. And Crow calls bullshit, because of course he does.

And I'd argue this is even more of a reason why Goodwin works as Icarus: He jumped off the bridge (flew too close to the sun), fell and lost his arm (the wax melted and he crashed into the sea), and ultimately, that fall completely changed his outlook on life and turned him from a (possible) hero into a villain (he "died", metaphorically speaking). This led to him now confronting every hopeful, younger person with the outlook that fate cannot be altered unless you're willing to sacrifice your very humanity itself. And there's Crow, a non-signer partaking in a "destined battle" only signers are supposed to be part of, calling bullshit on all of that merely by breathing.

(Bird boy is angry, watch out)

This moment could have been exemplary to emphasising the show's later themes (and I think to those who love Crow, it is), yet, at the same time, I understand why some people think the writers fumbled the ball with his introduction and role in the plot and cast of characters too much for it to hit as well as it could have. There is also the argument to be considered that the whole Daedalus Bridge-thing, though it might thematically fit Satellite, feels like it could have been written in solely to prop up Crow's character and give him something to clash with Goodwin about. Which, you know. I can't refute that, really. It might have been. And the timeline on Goodwin's shenanigans as the legendary duellist is a bit wonky, too, unfortunately—after all, we know only that the Zero Reverse happened 17 years before the show's start, when Yusei is only a year old. Crow's story would then lead us to believe that Goodwin, after somehow surviving that explosion, stayed in Satellite long enough to see it start turning into a floating heap of junk. (Which means this either happened very quickly or it took him a good few years to start building the bridge; both options have some logisitical issues.) Then he builds the bridge, gets cornered by security, jumps off, and... Then what? He looses his arm (but somehow manages to hold onto his brother's??), somehow makes it over to the city anyway (wow, he must be a great swimmer), then... manages to get hired by the public maintenance bureau somehow, only to climb the ranks at record speed and become director within only a few years? (Or did he meet Iliaster first and they somehow helped him climb to the city's political top?) It's all rather nebulous, and does suggest that Goodwin was not originally written with this bit as part of his backstory in mind. But can I prove that? Nope. Might also just be another instance of the writers fumbling the ball, despite having a solid story outline.

At the end of the day, Crow closes out the dark signers arc by establishing himself as a part of our team of heroes—which is, of course, strongly emphasised by him receiving the dragon's tail mark, while the dragon's head switches over to Yusei.

(The Crimson Dragon, probably: Oh, sod it. Fine, the other guy went batshit and you actually helped. Here's your mark. I'll get you a dragon later or whatever.)

Now, I know this in and of itself was already a polarising moment for people—and the funny thing is, I know that even some people who like Crow hated this moment. And I can see why. Crow's whole thing during the latter half of the DS arc up until here was that he was the only one taking part in the destined battle who was decidedly not destined to be a part of it. He was repeatedly spitting in fate's face, and as I mentioned, this could have been brilliant to throw some weight behind themes the show later brings up again. So in terms of character writing, this moment might have undermined Crow's character, rather than supported it, because it feels like less of a reward and more of a "gotcha": If you're extra uncharitable, Crow suddenly isn't the guy who defied fate and fought for the future (does that ring a bell?) anyway, he's the guy who was supposed to become a chosen one anyway and, like Yusei during the start of the Fortune Cup, simply didn't have a visible mark yet. However. There is also the bigger picture to consider. Character writing aside, Rudger/Roman Goodwin dying would have had a rather sizeable impact on the story, had nobody else become a signer in his stead—because there are supposed to be five signers and Rudger/Roman dying would have seen the group short one chosen one (and short one dragon, but we'll get to THAT can of worms in part two). So, to add my two cents for a minute, I don't think adding a new signer was a bad idea, per se. The execution of this move, however...

And I can hear you yelling. "Rua/Leo should have become a signer instead". And yes. I get that, too. And yes, I know Life Stream Dragon was teased before Black-Winged Dragon was ever conceived of, probably. So yes, Rua/Leo should have become a signer earlier. The question is just where. Because the way this final boss duel is set up, nobody could become an additional signer before this point, it would have turned Rex Goodwin's whole shindig on its head. (Even though the duel against Dimak/Devack could have been a good opportunity to reward Rua with a signer mark early.) Arguably, making Rua a signer instead but letting Crow join the main cast anyway could have made for a stronger showing overall. It would have made the twins harder to sideline the way they were later. And it would have kept Crow's "piss on fate"-theme.

But. This is what we got. Crow got a fast-paced introduction, was quickly made as likeable as possible, had an unfortunate stretch of episodes where he vanished very suspiciously (what I wouldn't give to know what decisions were made among the writers in that period), came back to make a very strong showing against Bommer/Greiger and then participate in the final boss duel against Rex Goodwin, where he got to shove his fate-nonsense back in his face, too. A smooth character arc? Hardly. And with everything laid out like this, I get why he rubbed some people the wrong way. Similarly, I get why he's some people's absolute favourite, though. Both sides have a basis in canon. (But please, let's not justify either with decade-old production conspiracy theories, okay?)

To close this out, allow me to do my thing for a moment and imagine a 5Ds canon where Crow was handled in a way that allowed his character to shine more, and maybe not piss as many people off.

Imagine a Crow who was there with Yusei from the start, alongside Nerve, Blitz, Taka, and Rally. A Crow who was, maybe, angrier at Jack for leaving and stealing Stardust than Yusei was, and who was determined to help his friend get his dragon back. A Crow who still had his kids to look after, and who introduced us to the Daedalus Bridge legend way earlier, to establish it as an organic part of Satellite culture, and who maybe drops hints about the Enforcers earlier, too. And we switch back to him every once in a while as the Fortune Cup is going on. Maybe he's the only one who's slippery enough to outrun Yaeger/Lazar's people when they come to capture Yusei's friends in order to use them as blackmail against him. And he starts looking for them, and runs into Saiga/Blister, and learns what's going on over in the city. Maybe he tries to follow Yusei because all of it rings alarm bells for him, maybe he doesn't because he figures security will be too tight now that Yusei has escaped. Instead of them stumbling out of a container to find TV conveniently playing the Fortune Cup Finale, Yusei's friends are found by Crow, who gets them back to the hideout, where they all catch the finale with Saiga/Blister. (Optional: If we want him to stay a signer, maybe he gets a weird feeling while watching the finale.) Then Yusei's suddenly back and Kiryu/Kalin's introduction proceeds as we know it. Yusei's injured, but Crow sticks around for a little longer, leaving only once he knows Yusei's gonna be fine. Then he decides that he needs to take up arms against the dark signers, too, because like hell is he gonna let anyone destroy Satellite and sacrifice his kids. He can still duel Yeager/Lazar while Aki and Yusei are duking it out in the hospital and the signers learn what the hell being a signer means, it matters little. Maybe this time, he outruns the black fog—barely—and there's no fridge. And he realises that stuff makes people vanish. While the signers start their big battle, he races back to check on the kids and finds the same disaster we already know, and everything else from there on out proceeds as previously. (Except that maybe, the first time Crow sees Jack again, he has some choice words for him for legging it to the city and stealing from Yusei.) Whether he turns into a signer at the end or not is up to preference, I think.

Nobody has to be on board with this version, but this is probably how I would have adjusted it to make things less jarring.

For now, see you in part two.

#yugioh 5ds #crow hogan #ygo 5ds #5ds #rex goodwin #character analysis #yugioh meta #orchid rambles #oh sweet baby jesus this took SO LONG #AND NOW I NEED A PART TWO #BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MANY THOUGHTS #god damn #it's very late at night here but I just Had To Get This Done #anyway take it #here it is #I'll try my best to work on part two quickly but I have no idea when I'm gonna get done with that

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multifandomgrabage · 2 years

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Random and non cohesive HB thoughts, particularly season 2:

I don’t condone or support Stella’s actions, but I am very disappointed in how she is written. Im fine with her being a villain, and I’ll even let a lack of a backstory slide! My main issues with Stella are:

A) Being 1 dimensional. Please, give her traits outside of “bitch” and “angry at Stolas”. The majority of the fan base already is (somehow) in support of Stolitz, you don’t need another prop to keep your ship going. (subpoint to a): Also, not a fan of the “wife finds out that her husband is queer” trope, but whatever, she is a villain. Its pretty fucking basic though.

B) Her lines. My fucking gosh, her lines are so fucking flat and weightless. You’d think that something an abuser says would stick and sound intimidating, but no. We get “I LiKe ToRmEnTiNg YoU”. For fucks sake, what was that?! As someone who grew up with an abusive mother, I can confidently say that no one will say that. Its like they didnt respect their ADULT audience enough to figure things out and felt they had to have a giant ass neon sign screaming

“LOOK HERE, THIS IS ABUSIVE, SHE SAID SHE LIKES HURTING HIM! A-B-U-S-E! NOW GO AND FORGET ABOUT ANY TERRIBLY TOXIC THINGS STOLAS OR BLITZO HAVE DONE”

Clearly the show is meant for adult audiences. We don’t need to be told what is and isn’t abuse. Why not do a little something called “show vs tell”? Some alright examples they have previously done are the portraits usually having just Stolas and Octavia, or a pissed Stella. Or seeing how she threw a fucking imp butler across the room.

I got a bit off topic, but here are some ways id probably write her:

A narcissist. To the outside world, she is friendly Stella, who just likes to party and smile. She has a perfect family, and everyone loves her. But under the surface, in order to feel superior she puts Stolas down constantly, through verbal abuse and perhaps some physical. Her love for Octavia is conditional, she is only pleased as long as everyone is doing everything to her command. All this possibly stems from an inferiority complex that she desperately covers through a high ego, false confidence and making sure others feel lesser to her.

Some possible lines?:

“You are nothing without me. You think you can make it on your own without me? You cant even take care of Octavia, what makes you think you can handle yourself”

“You would choose a lowly imp over me? I guess I shouldn’t have expected more from someone as low as you”

“You don’t even deserve to have me, consider yourself lucky that I am willing to stay”

“You look so damn stupid like that, singing in your self pity. Had you stuck with me, you wouldn’t have been in that position.” That or someone else mentioned Blitzo and Stella being childhood friends, her being arranged with Stolas, and then having the cheating incident

whoever had that idea is a genius.

C: Why is her design so damn good? I love fancy pigeons and they made her a fancy pigeon. (this isn’t a complaint but a thought)

Moving on from Stella, lets get to S2 E2…

I was so excited to have an episode where it wasn’t the Stolitz shipping show. I got my hopes too high. The one positive thing Ill say is that I enjoyed the adoption flashback. Maybe I read too much into it but it feels kind of like a commentary in how shitty the adoption system is, especially to teenagers. Any kid really, as they’re treated like literal dogs, and then kicked out on the street.

Back to me complaining about shit:

For one, why did we spend so much fucking tome in that stupid ass sitcom? If Stolas is such a caring dad, shouldn’t he just leave and look for Octavia? So much character growth could have happened in that time.

I know that Loona didn’t just tell Octavia to just deal with her dad neglecting her just because “he’s trying”. Its HIS responsibility as a parent to take care of his kid, and Octavia has every right to be upset st him and her circumstances. Her parents have been unstable, but after a divorce, even more so. Her dad has straight up ignored her, in favor of arguing with Stella. She did nothing wrong and has nothing to apologize for. I got so excited when Stolas started to apologize, but then Octavia apologized.

Did I mention that there was 4 minutes of Octavia and Loona together at most? Despite the thumbnail? Yeah, that blowed.

Honestly the only reason I keep up anymore is because of the animation and the weak dying hope that it’ll get better.

thats all ig, please don’t be rude in the comments. You can disagree but keep it civil. Going to bed now, bye

EDIT: So Imma randomly add a brainbarf of thoughts here too, because I do not feel like organizing shit. My brain's thoughts just expand everywhere, so bare with me.

Another reason why Stella's abuse doesn't really land is because Stolas just... doesn't seem afraid of her at all? For someone who claims to love tormenting someone, she sure is doing a shitty job at it. The way that Stolas would just have the balls (or cloaca ig) to keep going out using Blitz, worry free despite his wife doesn't give the vibes of "Victim of Domestic violence, verbal and physical abuse" to me.

To continue on why her abuse doesn't land, it has to do with the nature of this show and how it portrays stuff. It gets very confusing. Loona assaulting Blitz, Blitz and Asmodeus (on separate occasions) touching Moxie's groin area (without consent) and Multiple characters using slurs against Moxie is supposedly "funny".

Personally I don't find it humorous, but I do get somewhat jaded and desensitized to stuff like that happening. Not to say that it's acceptable behavior, but you do kind of get used to it and take it a little less seriously in the context. In S1E2 Stella is seen screaming and throwing shit around. This *can* be seen as portrayal of abuse, but given that many characters do similar shit it can also be seen as another unfunny attempt at humor.

Fast forward to season 2, if you've lasted that long you should expect some edgy shit like that to be written in a way that tries to excuse it. But all of a sudden, we get "Actually, abuse is bad. Feel bad for Stolas because he is abused by his wife. Yeah, we constantly make our characters do abusive things too, but it's funny when they do it, just ignore it and feel bad for Sad Gay Owl Man."

What? The fuck? Is the deal with powers, especially human disguises? Initially I thought that maybe only Succubi and Incubi, as well has hellhounds had the power because some hellborns are more powerful than others. How would that work if Hellhounds are below Imps in the hierarchy though? By that logic, shouldn't Imps also get that power? So that idea doesn't work. I don't fucking know why or how any of this works. Theres no storybuilding or explanation for it. For something that appears so often, I think there should be. The purpose of a human disguise is to blend in among the human world, so I can see Succubi/Incubi having that power because I'd assume they're some of the only demons allowed to go to the human world. I wouldn't know why a hellhound would come to Earth, but I guess they just have the power too?

Speaking of rules about demons on Earth that weren't explained!

Stolas is able to summon himself in some big scary owl demon form without his book ANYWHERE near him in "Truth Seekers". Yet in S2E2 he can only conjure up a poorly designed human form because now his powers are attached to the book? HUH?! Where is the consistency?

Also, given that IMP is big enough to get a commercial, how have they not gotten in trouble for breaking what I assume is one of hell's only rules? We know that they aren't supposed to be there, and yet this seems to have no consequence? Having them have to try and fly below the radar in hell would raise stakes a lot more imo.

But whatever, fuck the rules, because there are none!

______________________________________________________

Unrelated rambles, but still kind of relevant and similar? I just don't want to make a separate post.

I don't like Andrealphus' design. It's way too bright and saturated and honestly has my eyes strain a lot, despite not being red. I kinda wanna redesign him. Also I feel like he's gonna be yet another gay stereotype, which is always fun to have /s.

Lucifer's design is underwhelming. Not necessarly because the design is bad on its own, but because of two things:

A) Too many characters look like that. We have too many skinny white Tumblr Sexyman Twinks. We have too many characters with that copy paste smile. Too many characters in suits. He just doesn't stand out. This leads me to my next point.

B) His design doesn't say "Lucifer, King and Ruler of Hell, Fallen Angel". It says "Generic Vivziepop Snarky Guy with a quirky interest". BEFORE SOME OF YALL START SAYING "B-but ackshually he pwobably haz a more dwemwonic fowm 🤓", respectfully, no. I feel that the leader of hell should have a default design that commands some kind of respect out of fear, it doesn't have to be crazy, but it should be intimidating, and stand out. What kind of king just blends into a crowd of his own people? Especially in a fantasy? This is fiction, and there is no reason to hold back and not try something new. In fact, 90% of the characters being skinny could actually be used as an advantage, because then you could just make Lucifer's bodyshape different from the default and he'd already stand out much more.

Fuck it, two redesigns coming up. When I'm done I'll link them here.

#helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss stolas #helluva boss critical #helluva boss octavia #helluva spoilers #helluva loona #anti stolitz #helluva stella #rambles #not edited #now its edited #anyways uh #if anyones wondering im not really an anti of the show #but im not really a fan either?#ill see it come up and watch it casually and have thoughts

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blamemma · 8 months

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what you said about maxiel fanfics with endgame lest4ppen, yes, I agree. someone mentioned this before, but maxiel is slowly dying on ao3 while it seems to be thriving more and more on tumblr.

for me it's 50/50 because I don't mind where I'm reading, but here we have more one-shots and pieces of WIPs (which is good because it means authors don't feel the pressure to turn everything into a 50k story, so they can just post their ideas even if it's incomplete), but I personally LOVE longer stories, so I would love to read more and more about every single one of them.

and personally I just don't like lest4ppen at all. I understand the need to tag maxiel because daniel is the bad guy and the "shitty boyfriend" or whatever, but I just don't like seeing those stories 😬

will always preface asks like this by saying people can like what they like and find joy in whatever, i ain't gunna turn my nose up at anyone or anything, lestappen just doesn't make sense to meeee personally, but honestly whatever butters ur bread!!!

as someone who has dabbled here and there in this writing lark, for me there is a distinct difference in ao3 posting and tumblr posting....ao3 to me is formal, ur presenting something perfect, a fully-fledged story, a beginning a middle and an end (not in all cases but i just mean in general). most stuff i read on ao3 is fully-fledged nuanced ideas that the author has obviously spent hours of time crafting and experimenting with.

tumblr fic is inherently fun and blase and easier to throw out there into the ether and forget about really. tumblr fic doesn't need to follow grammatical rules or structure etc etc....it can just be a fun prompt game response or a quick lil fic that you had fun writing and wanna share with ur people?? both have purposes and both are enjoyable to write imo, just depends on what ur feeling and how much u want to expand on said idea??

when it comes to the maxiel of it all....idk how rude or pointed i can get here without getting into shit....so i'll try and word this gently....you have to keep the eco-system alive....i think comments and kudos are GREAT but honestly, if someone reblogs my fic with a fun few tags, i love that more, because in a selfish way, i might get 1 or 2 more readers from that because its going out to an even wider audience?? but its more than that!! engage with ur writers, message them on here and shout at them about their ideas, send them prompts, recommend their fic to ur friends...but i will stand by i think one of the best things you can do, if they make a fun lil post or graphic for their fic...reblog it...ur not only spreading the maxiel gospel, but ur also supporting that writer?? too many times on here i see people's fic graphics flop yet big blogs are leaving them comments on ao3 and look, EACH TO THEIR OWN and also i can sometimes be a bad reblogger dont get me wrong, but LIKE, there are some wildly talented authors on here who just need to be pushed into the limelight a little bit more??? idk if im wording this correctly, but sometimes there are fics that fall through the cracks because no one engages with them, and if ur an author who has put blood sweat and tears into that fic, ur not exactly going to be motivated to post another maxiel fic if u dont think ur going to get engagement from it (again, fic writing isn't necessarily about engagement or response, but let me tell u when i get a fun little comment or someone messages me about a fic i published, it inspires me to write more????)

maxiel is definitely alive and kicking, i follow some stunningly good maxiel authors, but at the same time, its about pushing forward those smaller writers as well and not thinking ur too cool for them???????????????

and so with that, this flufftober, kinktober, spooktober or whatever tober u are a part of, reblog the fic, talk about the fic and enjoy the fic

#if u can understand what i am trying to say here then well done cause i dont think i even do #mean thats a lie i do know what im trying to say but i know a lot of people would hate me if i said what i actually wanted to say :))#anon #asks

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feralplantwife · 3 months

Text

On the 2023 Hugo Awards Disaster

I have a lot of huge feelings about the Hugo Awards disaster. I also have a personal stake, as Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao was the best book I read last year and the most fun I've had reading a book in a very long time, so I'm mad about that in particular.

First and foremost, what the goddamn fuck??? The Hugo Awards are pretty much the biggest awards for genre fiction, specifically science fiction and fantasy, which continue to be shat upon by tweed-cocooned academics and their pick-me constituents.

The fact that they chose to eliminate minority authors and their works for the supposed sake of censorship (racism/queerphobia) has pretty much invalidated the credibility of the Hugo Awards past, present, and future. A major honor for authors has been reduced to a dubious bragging right and the validity of the final results are now nil.

If they weren't prepared for the responsibility involved in holding the convention in a specific country and weren't up to the task of carrying out their duties as a committee within the confines of that country with the bare minimum integrity, then they shouldn't have done so. The Hugo Awards committee have insulted the nominated authors, insulted the Chinese science fiction/fantasy audience, and insulted any even casual enjoyers of genre fiction.

And let's make one thing perfectly clear: there is absolutely no excuse for this, this is blatant RACISM and QUEERPHOBIA and nothing else. If you check my reblog from yesterday or visit Xiran Jay Zhao or Neil Gaiman's own blogs, you can literally follow an email chain where these absolute ghouls pick and choose which authors and works they're going to eliminate without even the slightest hesitation or reluctance. Just business as usual for them it seems!

There is already a huge problem with racism and minority suppression within the science fiction and fantasy genres, which are still largely dominated in the mainstream by cisgender, heterosexual white people, and the literature is still rife with racial/queer stereotypes and bigotry. The fact that these systemic issues have so deeply infiltrated one of the highest honors a science fiction/fantasy author can receive speaks of a downward trend in current sociopolitical practices and offers a dark glimpse into the future not only for these beloved genres but also for us- the readers.

I feel so bad for the Chinese people who voted so diligently for this convention to be hosted in Chengdu, only to find that the authors who represent them (among authors as well) were eliminated behind closed doors for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the merits of their works.

Because of the fandom spaces that I exist in, I get people screaming crying bitching moaning over not seeing boys kissing or whatever All The Time, on an almost daily basis, but the people who hurt the most because of the Chinese government's censorship are the citizens that exist under that censorship. Now, because of prejudiced weasels, this includes the truly exceptional authors that represent them on a HUGE scale overseas.

I'm furious with the awards committee on behalf of all of us and especially for them.

What can you do?

Activism takes many forms, most obviously ACTION. An accessible way for anyone to take action and combat this type of shitty behavior from literary influences like the World Science Fiction Convention and the Hugo Awards is to read diversely.

It makes you uncomfortable? Good! It makes you think? Even Better! It makes you learn? That's the best! Every time you buy a book, you're making the statement that this is what you want to read, this is what you value, this is what we need more of.

Can't buy books? Use your local library! Libraries keep records of what books get checked out the most, so if you check out diversely, they'll acquire more diverse literature for you to read. This is literally the basic foundation of how public libraries operate.

Support minority authors, and don't rely upon some committee to tell you which ones are worth reading. Ask BIPOC and Queer readers and authors instead. Our communities know best, and are happy to offer recommendations and contextual information to help you grow as both a person and a reader.

Fuck racism. Fuck the Hugo Awards. And Fuck Dave McCarty in particular.

And don't forget to reach out to [email protected] and let them know your thoughts and feelings on this matter

#hugo awards #2023 hugo awards #iron widow #xiran jay zhao #the sandman #neil gaiman #babel #r f kuang #queer lit #bipoc lit #read diversely

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espion7971 · 3 months

Text

im not gonna say that much about this. i didnt think i'd say anything about it at all. but im too angry, and too fucking sad. i wont get too personal but this isnt gonna be like my usual posts so be warned if you follow me for more lighthearted stuff.

i also just wanna say, i talk about myself a lot in this post. *obviously*, i am not the victim here. i have never been a victim of this situation. but it's caused me grief and fury, and this is an outlet. we should be supporting shubble and all other victims. i don't really expect anyone to read this. i just needed to write it for my own sake.

the whole wilbur soot situation is devastating. when i first heard about it, like a lot of others, i immediately shut myself into denial. i have watched this man since he joined the dream smp in 2020. i was there through the entire server, through his 100 player challenges, the sbi mccs, all of it. i was a lovejoy fan from the moment one day came out - hell, i hoped to see them in concert someday. i did countless (though probably shitty) art and writing pieces inspired by his work. it wasn't that hard to tell that he isn't someone with flawless mental health by any means. but i never thought anything like this would happen.

when i accepted that he was the abuser shubble had talked about, i was upset and confused and unhappy. but i also had hope. i hoped that maybe this had served as a wake-up call, that maybe he was getting the help he needed. maybe he'd take a break, come back with a genuine response, and then make his mental health and personal morals a priority. i hoped he was better than this.

needless to say, i am furious. "disappointed" doesn't begin to scratch the surface. i'm angry. i'm insulted. i'm embarrassed to have ever looked up to him. his response was robotic, emotionless, and gave no indication of remorse or accountability. he didn't even apologize. he claimed that he had already received help. if he has, then it clearly wasn't enough. this is not a man who's ashamed and looking to better himself, this is a man who is going to keep hurting people. and that is terrifying. i genuinely can't connect this with the person i've kept up with for 4 entire years. i can't believe it. i really can't.

this response has corporate PR bullshit dripping right off of it. this so clearly did not come from wilbur soot himself. he might not have been involved at all, beyond a glance over and an okay to whatever team did the writing. and that's the most insulting part of all. he didn't even type this up with his own words. he didn't even have the balls to make his own response. and that pisses me off.

he abused someone. probably more than one. and he didn't even acknowledge her. the 4 paragraphs of nothing are addressed to the wider audience, not shelby, the person this should be about. if this is the best he can do, i'm genuinely shocked he developed such a loyal and amazing fanbase. fucking revolting.

with all that said, i'm probably going to stop listening to lovejoy. that hurts me, a lot. that's a hard choice for me to make. but there need to be repercussions. and this is what i hope: i genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, hope he gets help. i hope he wakes up and realizes he isn't ok, and takes genuinely strives to better himself. i hope he grows and improves and becomes better for the people around him. and i hope he leaves social media permanently. that hurts me to say, but i don't think i could ever really trust him after this, and i don't think it would make his situation any better. i hope he leaves, and i hope he makes a better life for himself. it's an optimistic hope, considering how much evidence is pointing to his unwillingness to change. but i won't let go of it.

that's pretty much it. i've said my piece. i'm angry. i'm sad. i wish this was all a dream and no one ever got hurt. but shelby did get hurt, and others almost certainly did too, and no nice fancy corporate words will change that. good-bye, wilbur soot. the memories were good. i won't let you taint them. but there's no going back from this, at least on the internet. i hope you make a better life, and i hope you do it far away from anyone you have hurt or could hurt.

what a waste.

#wilbur soot #abuse #domestic abuse #idk maybe i'll delete this later #i just needed to say it. maybe to make it feel more real #i'm still pretty deep in denial in all honesty #i just can't believe it. i can't believe any of it

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jujumin-translates · 4 months

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Event | 5th Anniversary: The Way Back Home | EP 1: The Way Back Home Under the Starry Sky

*Contains spoilers for Act 12 - eternal moment*

Sakuya: Thank you so much!

Tsumugi: Thank you so much!

Banri: It still ain’t enough room.

Tenma: We could clear out some more space.

Sakyo: The seating area would be smaller if we did that.

Masumi: I’d rather have just one seat in the theater. A special seat just for the Director.

Tsuzuru: Do you not get the point of this special performance of the Mankai Performance?

Juza: You’re takin’ up too much space.

Banri: I don’t wanna hear it from you.

Taichi: Awah, moving suddenly like that is kinda dangerous!

Omi: Whoa, be careful.

Sakyo: Settsu, Hyodo, don’t fight in such a confined space!

Azami: Shut up! Don’t yell in my ear like that, Shitty Sakyo!

Misumi: If we all squeeze together, we’ll be just fine!

Kazunari: Yep, yep! Hug time!

Kumon: Let me join! Hug!

Muku: Wahwah.

Yuki: You’re all sweaty!

Azuma: Fufu, everyone’s so nice and lively.

Tasuku: Too lively, if you ask me.

Hisoka: …I can feel the vibrations from here.

Homare: As expected of you, Hisoka-kun. Even while excited, your body doesn’t move at all.

Sakuya: It’s so fun having all twenty-four of us together!

Chikage: It’s quite a spectacle, isn’t it?

Itaru: Yeah, but with all of us here, the curtain call is kinda chaotic.

Guy: We’re already twelve minutes over the scheduled time.

Tsumugi: Well then, let’s finish things off with our final goodbyes.

Citron: Leader, if you please.

Sakuya: Huh?

Tenma: Who better to do it other than you, Sakuya?

Banri: We’re leavin’ it to you.

Sakuya: Umm, well then--.

Sakuya: Once again, thanks to all of your support, we were able to win the Fleur Special Award.

Sakuya: We’ve all been through a lot, but…

Sakuya: We’re able to stand on stage as MANKAI Company because we have you all watching over us from the audience.

Sakuya: Without all of you, I don’t think we would’ve been able to make it this far as MANKAI Company.

Sakuya: As always, thank you for all of your support. Please continue supporting MANKAI Company!

*Applause*

Audience Member A: We’ve always been cheering for you!

Audience Member B: Thank you for keeping MANKAI Company going!

Audience Member C: Keep doing your best!

Izumi: --.

Izumi: (Loud, warm applause and the audience’s smiles… I’m sure we’ll never forget this sight.)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Izumi: Great work, guys!

Manager: Good work!

Sakuya: Waah, there’s so many flowers.

Azuma: Some of them have messages with them and some of them came with balloons.

Muku: They’re so cute!

Tenma: These are quite the gifts.

Tasuku: This is just the kind of stuff you get when you do things for your fans.

Tsumugi: I’m grateful for it.

Kazunari: I wanna take some pics to commemorate each and every one!

Izumi: Photo time can wait, first let’s have a toast.

Rento: Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a whole feast prepared for ya!

Manager: It’s from the first generation~!

Taichi: That looks hella good!

Tenma: This is meat from that upscale barbecue restaurant…

Manager: That’s from Hyuga-san!

Tenma: Knew it.

Banri: Makes sense, seems like a pretty celebrity-like thing to do.

Omi: This hors d’oeuvre set is probably from Zen-san.

Azami: That’s a hell of a lot of stuff.

Juza: The desserts look real good.

Azami: Def from Zen-san.

Citron: The liquor over here looks very good too!

Guy: This is probably from… Otomiya.

Manager: That’s right!

Chikage: It seems like something Syu-san would do. He’s got good taste.

Banri: Couldn’t have been cheap.

Itaru: Def expensive.

Muku: The hors d’oeuvres over here are really pretty.

Kumon: It’s almost too pretty to eat~.

Hisoka: There’s marshmallows, too.

Muku: It’s so cute!

Yuki: This pink, frilly stuff has to be from Kasumi, right?

Manager: Yep!

Masumi: Figured.

Homare: The first generation should’ve joined us.

Sakyo: They must be embarrassed to show up so often.

Sakuya: Let’s send them a picture as a thanks.

Izumi: Does everyone have a drink in hand?

Izumi: Well then, cheers!

Citron: Cheers!

Omi: Cheers.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Rento: It was fun bein’ able to do things that we wouldn’t have usually been able to do with the spin-off.

Banri: They were all tied to the original, so we were all hella determined.

Rento: For real! You get what I’m sayin’.

Rento: It was easier to understand the life behind the roles ‘cause of the buildup from the main story ‘n stuff. Totally easy to work with.

Omi: We had fun acting too.

Misumi: The lighting was sparkly and pretty for every troupe~. It was like stars.

Akashi: Ah… thank you. I was thinking about the stars in space, so… I’m glad it came across.

Kazunari: Whoa, the survey box is stuffed full!

Manager: HUH!? We’re on the verge of entering typing hell again…

Izumi: Tallying is hard, but I’m looking forward to reading through the feedback!

Taichi: I can’t wait to read it either!

Tsumugi: I’m sure that after reading them, we’ll want to give back to our fans even more.

Guy: There’s seemingly no end to them. I’m truly grateful.

Tsuzuru: This time, we were given the opportunity to try something new with the spin-offs, so I hope we can do something like it again sometime.

Izumi: The fun never ends, does it?

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

#a3!#a3! translation #sakuya sakuma #tenma sumeragi #banri settsu #tsumugi tsukioka #isuke matsukawa #rento kinozaki #akashi serizawa

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bluegekk0 · 7 months

Text

bit of a ramble incoming, feel free to ignore. i'll put it under a read more thing in case it gets long

i think i've reached a point where i made such a specific image of the au characters in my head that i can't enjoy them outside of it anymore. like, it's really hard for me to separate the two, if i hear "grimm" i think of the au grimm, it's hard to think of him outside of the au context. idk if i'm making sense

but weirdly enough i'm kind of glad that's the case? i can definitely feel my interest in the game and especially fan content slipping away, and i would've likely moved on to something else by now. but i love the au, i love it so much, i still think about it daily and all of the lore and personalities i made for these characters keeps me going

i guess feeling uncomfortable with some ships or headcanons because of how strongly i associate the characters with my versions is something i just have to live with. usually it's not bad, it's quite easy to ignore it since i don't specifically go looking for hk fanart and fanfics these days. i guess what bothers me the most is when people leave that kinda stuff under my art. y'know the usual pk discourse and jokes kind of comments especially. it's unavoidable, and i can't blame people for not knowing all of the lore of my au, but i think that's the most irritating and upsetting part of all of this. it's the reason why i stopped posting as much art in some spaces, all the jokes about pk killing children real get old, and a bit upsetting whenever they're targeted at fpk (since the whole thing is so much more nuanced in the au)

in some ways i also feel like i alienated myself a little. i'm so deep in the grimm x fpk rabbit hole that i don't have much in common with people who stick to wyrmroot. hell, the way i wrote wl in the au kind of makes me dislike her (as a person, that is. i still think she's a cool character, i just made her a bit of a shitty person since i kinda like her as the more unpleasant of the two. the cold and uncaring tree being), and i feel like a lot of those people wouldn't like what i've done with it. same goes for hornet and all the headcanons and interpretations where she hates her father. i see where those come from, but i kind of feel like an outlier with how i portray her in the au. and of course there's fpk himself. i don't have to tell you how much he differs from your usual pk interpretations. but he means so much to me that i genuinely can't see him any other way

that being said, i love the au too much to stop because of any of this, and the fact that there are people who enjoy it gives me another reason to keep going. it's my comfort au, and i'm so, so glad i can share that feeling with you all, and reveal more about it as i write it. i've never been so invested in anything before, not to this extent, so it makes me so happy that there is an audience that supports it. i love you guys so much, you have no idea. i can't thank you enough

honestly i don't know what point i'm trying to make here. i just wanted to put it into words, i suppose. i may have already mentioned some of this before, but it's still constantly on my mind and i wanted to get it out of my system. but again, thank you guys for still being here. it means so much to me

#gekko.txt

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inkdragonworks · 10 months

Text

After waiting a few days, I wanted to announce I’ve deleted Twitter off my phone.

Which is still a lame announcement. I was debating deleting my account entirely but there’s enough people I mentioned it to that would be upset about it being gone, that I’d feel like it’d be better to keep it around. I doubt Twitter will ever switch hands, or the person forced to run it will care about the user experience over their own, so I guess I’ll only ever go on to dump links that go back to here.

It’s not entirely related to the current owner though. I’ve had problems with twitter for a long time, but accepted being on there due to needing something to distract myself, and that it had the largest audience.

lately, as in within the past few years, I’ve cared less and less about audiences, and accepting that me and the stuff I care about are probably going to stay relatively obscure. My output is too slow; even if I managed to make something that had a freak accident amount of recognition, I couldn’t capitalize on that momentum. It’s just not who I am or what I want to make.

Maybe if I win the lottery and could pay people to help, then sure. Crowdfunding isn’t a realistic avenue (too much time to create, not enough interest to justify it, amount of money required for it to be a livable wage is too expensive, burden of deadline, risk of life circumstances getting in the way, etc). The money I’m making and saving now, it’s for my family and livelihood, it’s not gonna be for a passion project.

I’ve thought about all that for years. I’m fine taking a year to make a chapter at this point. I’m fine with the idea of dying before completing it. I’m fine with it getting a modest release and being moved on from after a week, like the majority of things released. I’m happy working on it for its own sake.

the kind of person I’d have to be to change that isn’t something I’d like. I don’t care about being a brand, or supporting a brand, or someone’s shitty brand image. That’s the other aspect of twitter that I’m just not into and the whole trap of chasing an audience. “Outreach” “market viability” “viewer retention” “content output” “engagement” “hype culture”. It’s concepts that turn things from works of art into products, and even if that isn’t someone’s goal, platforms like twitter perpetuate that perspective. It’s not real, but it’s a pretty addictive mindset cause it keeps giving you feedback to encourage it. Likes, retweets, follows, views, comments. You look at one post you made before to now and feel a sense of progress. You look at the post you made and one someone else did, and you think that’s a goal. But its not a goal towards cultivating self expression and fulfillment. It’s a goal towards chasing a high.

Usually reality is pretty boring, and I’m good at being boring, so that’s where I’d like to be now. I’m sorry that I have this tendency to ramble about these things, but that’s where my care lies. I think about existential stuff a lot. As for tumblr it’s pretty dead and I don’t really browse it much. I feel like having some place to share my stuff publicly, so this is what I’m doing for now.

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ratsandfashion · 9 months

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Just left an RP blog I'd had for seven years, the fandom it was for, and the Tumblr RPC in general. Don't want to name it, but while I loved my mutuals and the character, the canon around the character had changed in a really negative way and fandom had reacted in kind, and slowly but surely it just made me more and more unhappy. Not only did I no longer engage with the source material because it was so shitty, but I started getting upset and jealous when I just saw things of other characters who had nothing to do with it, simply because I was envious they hadn't undergone this treatment, that even if they had a rough patch of writing they could come back from it in a way my guy couldn't, that people who were fans of them weren't alone and had entire sub-communities of support who agreed canon was being shitty. . .I just got upset at smaller and smaller things in ways that weren't healthy at all, and my misery started outweighing my good experiences. It wasn't healthy at all, and it was absurd if I'm being objective because holy shit this is just FICTION some people have REAL problems, but that's autistic hyperfixation and obsession for you. It just mattered way too much for me. I'm really sad to break away from something that brought me so much joy and connection with others, but I'd been strongly considering it since last year. Looking forward to it, even, fantasizing about being free from my own stupid overreactions having such a hold on me. I am staying in touch with friends I made there, but tbh I don't think that's going to last. Not because we're not real friends but because that's just been my experience with leaving places but staying in contact with folks from them. You don't mean to, but you drift apart sooner or later. My time in the fandom did really improve my art because it drove me to work out it, since my mutuals gave me an audience, no matter how small, and my muse gave me so many ideas and pushed me to work on things I never would have pursued drawing on my own. So I am worried about not keeping up practice and making stuff, but I'm going to do my best. Some part of me wishes I'd stayed and roughed it out longer but I know this was the better decision for my own good. I just regret that it wasn't due to simply losing interest on my own, I still love this character, but due to external circumstances making that enjoyment more of a burden than a delight. I think I'm just gonna go back to fandomless OCs for a long time after this.

#my life

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powerpolyculeshowdown · 1 year

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Bittersweet anon here, i hope this doesn't annoy you or is too long or anything and you don't have to post it if you don't want to but i just wanted to share my favorite bits of the threat with you because some parts of it made me think about our conversation about this whole thing:

"It is clear to everyone that this relationship is open to interpretations ranging from poly, to open with a +1, to platonic soul mates, etc right? And that this is left ambiguous due to the nature of the self-insert medium?" (this was a poll question he posted, where 98% of people answered yes and only 2% said no)

"I got a bunch of hate during Chapter 3 because I didn't explicitly state exactly what the relationship was, despite openly stating that any interpretation be it romantic, platonic, etc. was valid and welcome! No one was ever told no, or that they were wrong."

"These seemed to be people who were relatively new to my work, and(...) weren't there for the panic that swept through when Seth appeared and people thought Alphonse was going to break up with (listener), or that the relationship would change in a radical way."

"But damn, there were a few really loud folks during Chapter 3 that stole a lot of the joy from me during that time. Imagine telling a queer creator that they're baiting because they didn't pat your head and tell you you're the one true correct interpretation. Yikes!"

"It got to the point where I was questioning myself, wondering if I had drastically misjudged my audience and understanding of expectations. But...no, I think it was just a few people whose expectations from other creators didn't translate to how I do things."

"Which is fine, I don't want to appeal to everyone, and I create for me first and foremost. My art is for my joy, my story, my heart. But if you want to be a jerk about it, I will probably tell you to go fuck yourself moving forward."

"For those of you who have been supportive, voiced additional support in the face of the most bad faith shitty takes the fandom has ever seen, or just vibed in your own lane and enjoy my boys in peace...bless you. You keep me going. <3"

"It means a lot to me that interpretations like this exist and are valid. There's so many stories about jealousy and bitterness and miscommunication that would blow up a relationship like that. Sometimes it's nice that people can grow together and just be family!"

"I cross posted this on YouTube and got such a lovely response from the community there as well. Thank you all for the validation, I was really miserable after Chapter 3 wrapped but this comforts the hell outta me."

it doesnt annoy me at all!! to tell the truth i was worried about the author when you told me about the hate they got for choosing to keep it open. it's extremely frustrating to me that soany people target queer creators or queer media in general for not being what they personally consider Perfect, as if not fitting one specific mold makes it irredeemable fsr??

like ive seen ppl accuse media with a roch cast of queer characters where a few happened to die as "bury your gays trope" like no!! thats not how it works!! gay characters can die the problem is when you kill off your only rep!!

an auhor can leave something open to interpretation, especially smth like this where like the listener is a character and you're trying to make a large group comfortable, that's not baiting. the characters are even canonically gay and open to polyamory, like, someone's personal interpretation of the relationship status doesnt change that??

im happy to hear the author is feeling better now nd that they got support too! thanks for sharing these w me since i couldnt look at the thread on my phone, i appreciate it!! i might not be in the fandom but i do like when people tell me aboit the stuff they like so im always happy to listen when you send messages about bittersweet! (same goes for any other ask ive gotten that just wanted to talk about their beloveds!!)

#polyasks #not poll related #bittersweet yuurivoice

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mysteriouslybluepirate · 1 year

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Watching Con O'Neill's Filmography: 'Telstar: the Joe Meek movie'

This movie needs Warnings for: Murder, graphic and accurate depictions of Suicide, depictions of depressive episodes, psychotic-of-body episodes, assault, manic moods, some nudity(nothing below the waist), semi depicted sex. Mentions of hate crimes, entrapment from a police officer, homophobic language, period-accurate (1960's England) homophobia, outing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Con is a fucking genius, and yeah, I'm glad I waited until I was out of a bad headspace to watch this. I was finally pushed after listening to a podcast where he talks about his experience filming the movie. It reassured a lot of the hesitancy I had and made me appreciate how he must have made this.

Every actor kills it, and yeah, a few unfortunate actors are in this but play a small enough roll it shouldn't matter. Go in fully informed about triggers and how to keep yourself safe.

(SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT)

God, the fact that everyone went on to either disappear or revolutionize pop and rock music is so fucking depressing. The whole 'what happens to musicians' line just came true.

The movie never covered how much debt he owed, but god. The 3 million given a few months after his death just might have paid off. If he'd just stayed around for a bit longer, he might have built a better support system with people who could call his bullshit out.

As for the romance, god. You get that Joe Meek tended to attach himself to anyone who would listen. In the interview that made me watch the movie, Con said he'd listened to all this guy's work and a ton of it was puppy love-based music.

The guy who chose him just so happened to be young and unwilling to sacrifice his career for possibly being associated with him. Starting fresh and keeping Joe close as a 'friend' in the eyes of the public. Both members of the shitty relationship here are at fault for poor communication and abuse. But god, it just aches. I read it as a kid who slept with someone powerful and got too close. The lonely target is too willing to be taken advantage of for a taste of companionship.

If Joe had people around him who worked like he did maybe he could have had other influences. All the people in his life relied on his music to make money, and once he started to fall behind. Once society moved on, it was already too late. Just to survive everyone else had to move on.

The fading motif is amazing.

That moment Heinz goes to go back into the car, and the audience expects him to fade away, but Meek reaches out and grabs his hand in public. Desperate to keep him here since everyone else was leaving around him. Just fucking killed me.

The tragedy is knowing that if he'd just listened to the world around him. Stopped trying to make songs that worked in the 50s in the new era of the 60s, he could have survived. Everyone else saw this, but Meek just couldn't see it.

Other artists of the 50's era also had this split, which was why pop/rock was predominately younger, giving the new genera a shot.

Modern mental health specialists suspect real-life Meek of having schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with 'psychotic rages'. Con does play him like this, and it's so fucking refreshing.

I have both been diagnosed with BPD, and have schizophrenia-like symptoms from major depressive disorder, and yeah, a few scenes really hit home. It can feel like you are alone, being shoved into a corner. Hating yourself and not understanding why everyone hates you.

When in reality, much like Joe does in the movie, you are causing pain in the life of those around you. Sometimes people need to leave your life for a bit, and you don't get why. You don't realize how rude or mean you are in the moment. There are other things, but this is a general list of my initial thoughts.

Of course, a mentally ill person isn't just their illness. They never are, Joe also has a personality. Con plays a Joe Meek that is so desperate to be loved and accepted. He wants the things everyone else gets to have, success, money, and top hits without seeing how others around him could helm. His only want in life is a success; he never thought he'd get to love. His pride causes his downfall; it's never just his fault when things go wrong.

He'll have screaming scenes and be spitting and angry. In seconds he'll be sad Con O'Neill once again, portraying a sad broken man, with a smile and tears in his eyes, and AHH. I'm excited to rewatch this movie.

I feel for the landlady and Patrick. We don't know what really happened, obviously, but if that's how things ended...shit.

The cinematography is amazing, besides some bits that are very of its age. It feels era-appropriate. I'm excited to go do research about the inaccuracies. I want to look into if, after the outing, Joe started to really spiral. What the before and after were like.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This bit was added a bit after watching. This was the first Con movie I'd watched, so I didn't have this rating scale like his other works)

Con: Fucking 10/10. Joe obviously isn't my favorite Con character, but it might just be my favorite performance. Knowing that he was stage Joe, and was chosen to be Joe in the movie. Even if his name wouldn't fill seats at the time, was the right choice. Even though this is in a mid-late era compared to other things I watch in this series, it feels like a masterclass in acting. We get to see every shade of emotion Con is able to produce and it has heavily influenced how I appreciate him as an actor.

Everyone accept Con: 8-9/10. I can't think of any actors being awful and I couldn't find too many reports of inaccuracies from real-life people about their screen counterparts.

Editing: 8/10. Semi stuck in the era it came out in. There were a few scenes that felt a bit stuck in 2008, but other than that. The music choices, fun montages, and hard cuts were smooth and helped the story along. I personally love the cuts where we see future/present Joe having his breakdown, then showing exactly how Joe got to this headspace.

Music: Stellar. I personally can't stand a ton of music from this era, but god, the movie made everything feel so fresh. I knew where half of these bands ended up, and still, it felt new and exciting to see their start.

Overall: Personally a 10/10. I fucking love this movie, as a depiction of some of the struggles I've worked very hard to work on. Seeing a character you go from disliking to empathizing with. Would I recommend it to anyone? God no. You really need to evaluate just how heavily the warnings I gave above will be an issue. (If you've read this, haven't watched it, and want to ask about warnings, don't be afraid to message me)

Do I enjoy it mainly for Con? Maybe, but given that he's the character on screen for 70% of the movie I don't feel like that's a wrong 'bias' to have.

#con o'neill #telstar #telstar: the joe meek movie #telstar the joe meek movie #con oneill #Con's Conography

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kairismess · 4 months

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彡⋆｡˚ rules.

this is strictly a sfw blog; though i don't particularly mind people over the age of 17 to follow me (so long as you don't expect me to entertain anything of explicit or nsfw nature, please refrain from approaching me, my asks, or this blog with that kind of content.)

please dni if you are: a homophobe, transphobe, ableist, pedophile, or just anyone problematic. my blog will serve as a safe space to share thoughts, ideas, and imagines; not to fuel or spark any heated discussions.

please do not send the same request twice; i have a life outside of tumblr, so my real life may interfere with my time online and make me unable to fulfill your request immediately. i will do my best to fulfill your requests as soon as i can, but please be patient with me. i am only one person y'all :((

do not copy, translate, nor repost my work. i don't exactly get paid for doing this, it's all for fun an giggles; to see any of my work (be it fics, bots, banners, or whatever else i make) get reposted without credit just feels shitty, please do credit me if you use any of my stuff, thank you.

as much as possible, i encourage you guys to please reblog and like my stuff if you enjoyed it! likes don't exactly get me and other creators far on this platform, tumblr focuses more on how many reblogs a creator has to keep them on your dash; so please, if you liked my stuff, please reblog it too to support me! (this is still up to you guys, no pressure!)

what i will write: fluff, fem!readers, filo!readers, gn!readers, and just anything else sfw. i'll also do suggestive stuff, but nothing too explicit.

what i will NOT write: anything promoting SH, s*ic*de, d**g u*se, homophobia, r*pe, and other harmful topics that i just cannot find pleasant nor comfortable to write about.

please send all requests to my asks. my dm's are NOT meant for sending requests, all requests made will be sent to my inboxes. if you send a request through my dm's, sorry to say, but i'm not gonna be able to do it.

please respect my rules. it should go without saying at this point, but please, please, please respect my rules; they were put up here for a reason, and it's to keep me and my audience safe from harmful or uncomfortable topics.

once again, my blog is a safe space for all those who come to read my content, i'll interact with you guys so long as you respect my rules; respect my rules, and i'll respect yours ^^

#📜 kairi's rules !!

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voidcommascreamintothe · 10 months

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The morally grey villain and Moral Compass characters

I love A Court of Thorns and Roses. I have reread them a few times, and the fourth book in the series, A Court of Silver Flames, delft some ✨emotional damage✨. Critical hits, that lowered my health bar into the red. It showed me now to heal some wounds, and pointed ad others that i wasn’t even aware were there to begin with. Its the best in the series and Nessian reigns supreme argue with the wall.

Any way.. morally grey. Do people know what that means? I feel like a great portion of the fandom misses a crucial part of the story : Rhysand is not the hero. He is not portrayed as the hero, nor should he be considered to be one. The story it self, I feel like, does not have a hero. Not in the way that StarWars of LotR has. And by that i mean that it does not have a character that is considered to be the moral compass. It doesnt have a Luke Skywalker, boy plucked from common life by a twist of fate and thrust into a fight against the space na//i regime; or Frodo Bagins, tasked to carry evil itself to the point if its birth, and destroy it. These stories, and many others like them that follow the “Chosen One” archetype, orientate the story in such a way, that the audience always know who the Bad Guys are and who the Good Guys are, by simply making the protagonist the moral compass. What Luke thinks is wrong, we think is wrong. Luke fignt for the resistance because he thinks its the right thing to do, and so we, the audience agree with him and go along on the journey. Frodo thinks that Saruman and Sauron should be stoped, so we root for him and cheer when the battle is finished.

This is not a bad thing. Telling these stories is not a bad thing, i am not saying that. What i am saying is that this is a cheeky little narrative shorthand to get the audiences to clearly distinguish Bad Guys from Good Guys. Its fine and its common. So common in fact, that when the story does not have a (clear) Moral Compass character, some folks have a tendency to lump these characters into one of the two categories.

Now this is when ACOTAR comes in (apologies for the long intro). ACOTAR does have a protagonist, three of them in fact, meaning the Archeron sisters, but it doesn’t neseceraly have them as the Moral Compass characters. Feyre is the protagonist, and Amarantha is the antagonist. Tamlin is the love interest, and Rhysand is the mini boss Feyre needs to defeat to get to Amarantha. But the majority of the characters introduced, sans Amarantha and a few others, are not just pure goodness. They do shitty things, make bad choises, and fight tooth and nail to get what they want.

Rhysand is a MORALY GREY character. He is supposed to scheme and manipulate to ultimately achieve his goal. The goal in this case is freedom from Amarantha and to get Feyre. Its told to us, every step of the way, that he is doing things that might be wrong but serve his ultimate purpose (which in his mind is good and right). He gets Feyre drunk off faerie wine UTM and doesn’t touch her sexually, in order to make her not remember most of the depravities that go on during the parties. Yes he tried to protect her, but getting her drunk and lowering her inhibitions in still wrong. He didn’t do anything sexual, but it was violating nonetheless.

Furthermore, he constantly puts political alliances before familly. We see this with Nesta when he arranges her meeting with Tamlin and Eris. Nesta was kidnaped, if not by Eris himself then by those in his command, and was held captive at Tamlin’s home. Putting her in a situation where she has to see those men is re-victimizing her. He goes through with it anyway. His need for political alliances outweighs the necessity to keep his sister-in-law safe. He makes Nesta dance, and seduce Eris to secure his loyalty, or at least some form of military support. Rhysand is even willing to marry Nesta off to Eris, a man he knows to be abusive and stem from an abusive home, all so he can achieve his goals. Rhysand is not evil, but he isnt the cinammon roll Mr Feminism this fandom makes him out to be sometimes.

Layered characters with complex morals means a High Lord who loves his wife, and i believe he truly does love her; but it also means that he steamrolls over her autonomy in the name of keeping her safe. His idea and subsequent execution of said love is skewed. Keeping secrets to keep someone happy is not love. Telling them the truth and trusting them to make the right choice, and trusting them to choose to love you still, is love.

But i don’t really expect this from Rhysand. I never did. This whole idea of him being a bit of a prick was in the back of my mind, and was only confirmed in ACoSF. Nesta seeing through faerie glamor spells allowed her to see through Rhysands surface charm and charisma. It allowed her to see his core beliefs, in a way that his “family” never can. So, to mitigate this, and to try to cover up a problem he created, referring to Feyre’s pregnancy, he threatens to kill her.

What was up with that anyway? Why was that kind of glanced over? I am forever angry about Cassian just kind of letting that slide, but i have so much to say about Cassian as a whole i might be writting an other post entirely about that, should the inspiration arise.

But i digress. I leave you with this:

I like Rhys in the same way I like Darth Vader or Loki. He is an interesting antagonist with complex, and maybe a little convoluted plans, that i can safely engage with in the world of fiction. A world that is safe, because i have the ultimate power- any and all events end when i say they do. I can disengage precisely when i want to, and can choose wether to continue or not. This is the point of fiction: to explore characters and events, even morally or ethically wrong ones, whilst having the ultimate safe word.

I am not a Rhys apologist, but i do think that some readers weren’t clear on the fact that he is an asshole, an arrogant preening asshole that values politicking and courtly connections above familial ties. As long as we are all on the same page about that, i shan’t be cross with you.

Bonsoir.

#not me dropping a furthermore on ya #i am just ranting #this is stream of conciousness that why no sources #acotar #acosf #nesta acotar #pro nesta #nesta x cassian #nesta archeron #anti rhysand #not really anti rhys #media literacy #pro acosf #furthermore

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randomidiocyncrazies · 2 years

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Gwitch ep 4

just watched ep 4... some of my thoughts under the cut

Guel: i actually liked that Guel is still kind of an abrasive jerk; it’s obvious that his “apology” to Miorine wasn’t genuine, and he only did it because his sense of honor compels him to abide by the duel results. Coupled with the conversation he has with his brother about not pissing their dad off any further, it may signal Guel doubling down on supporting the shitty practices of the mega-corp culture (probably shown to the audience by obeying his dad), even though a part of him that had a brief taste of freedom knows it’s wrong.

also, the “it’s not like I’m actually interested in you” tsundere comment had me laughing... but it’s also kind of sad in a way if he is actually telling the truth? Suletta’s comments after their duel is the first time in his life he’s felt seen, and his first instinct is to get married because he can’t conceptualize any other way to keep this moment of happiness. On the one hand, I think it’d be cool if Guel genuinely isn’t romantically interested in Suletta, and the proposal is purely a knee-jerk expression of Guel enjoying being valued for something he’s proud of without hidden expectations. On the other, the whole situation is such an archetype in fictional romance situations that it’s hard to imagine them not following up on it. (That said, I don’t foresee Suletta reciprocating the interest; Guel may sacrifice himself to save Suletta at a critical moment down the line though.)

Chuchu: lmao it was soooo satisfying when she clocked that bully out cold! I also think it’s kind of funny that the proctors for the piloting exam 1) do not give a fuck about sabotage + literal brawls and 2) let failing students redo their makeup test until they pass. I mean, (2) makes sense because all the kids got into the school because of their connections to corporations, so they probably can’t actually fail anyone because it might cause political trouble if they failed someone who is well-connected? (I do kinda question the lax attitude about the brawl and the genera lack of safety precautions though? A lot of the top corporations have their heirs attending the school; all it takes is an accident, and you can put a lot of corporations out of commission, or at least wipe out a large portion of the next generation easily.)

Another thing that I thought was cool is that Chuchu was initially cheering for Suletta—to the point where her dorm-mates are like “um she’s from space too”—and it’s only after Guel’s failed proposal that she gets angry and writes Suletta off as one of “those carefree Spacians” since she thought the whole thing is a stupid love quarrel. It makes sense why she changes her mind about Suletta later on.

Also, while Chuchu certainly is abrasive against Spacians, I was not a fan of how Miorine basically said “reverse racism” without acknowledging the unequal power dynamics between Earthians and Spacians. I’m a little worried that the show is gonna go the route of “uwu can’t we all just be nice to each other” and tone police individuals from the oppressed group, when the power balance is inherently skewed. Like... I hope Miorine realizes later on that her comment was tone-deaf at best, but I honestly don’t know what to expect.

Miorine: her status of having no support system/no power despite being the president’s daughter is reinforced here—she lives in her father’s office instead of a dorm. Since she’s a ‘prize’ for the Holder, it makes sense that she doesn’t technically ‘belong’ to any House i guess?

Now, I get the feeling that a ‘Rembran House’ doesn’t exist, despite Delling being the highest authority in their hellscape corpocracy—since Houses/dorms are affiliated with the sponsoring companies, I wonder if this suggests Delling doesn’t actually have a platform to sponsor (multiple) students (or is otherwise constrained). He’s the head of the Benerit Group, but he seems to rely on personal power/charisma (for lack of a better word) rather than a corporation as his power base?

If the above speculation is on the right track, I think it’s really interesting that Miorine and her father share the trait of being individualistic; I hope Miorine’s arc involves a deeper understanding of group/community dynamics and connecting to a support system. Right now Miorine has no friends, other than arguably Suletta. When they’re in trouble/need help from others, Suletta is able/willing to ask others for help (though nobody is really willing to help); in contrast, Miorine tries to do everything herself—she can’t rely on anyone because her father undermines her autonomy at every turn for pretty much her entire life. I look forward to the dynamics between our leads and see if they’ll start to take traits from each other.

Suletta: I think Suletta is a really interesting character in that she seems a little contradictory? She’s both a confident badass (in Aerial) and a shy, stuttering mess (in social interactions). I like that she’s a beast with Aerial, but needs help with the basic stuff that the school teaches; it gives off the feeling that she’s an ace in a very specific field, but needs help in other areas. Her dream is very sweet, and sets up a nice contrast with Miorine’s “live only for yourself” mentality.

The sequence with her having to retake the makeup test over and over again really got to me: it’s a huge blow to her self-esteem since it’s happening in public, and even as an audience i could feel the stress/panic of failing over and over and over again with the added pressure of the bullies laughing and Chuchu complaining about the retakes cutting into her own test time.

Spacian/Earthian conflict: okay, so it’s mostly referred to as a racism problem, but it’s really a race/class intersectional issue. I am a little worried that the show will just... kinda equate the two without exploring the nuance between these two axis of oppression (after all, there should theoretically be rich Earthian companies, and we know there are poor Spacian corporations in low standing), but I’m happy to see where the show takes us.

I kinda hope the link between the corpocracy and nationality is made clearer—the main ‘location-based’ conflict is between Earth and Space because all the big companies are based in space colonies (while Earth is seen as just a place for sweatshop factories at this point), but what about the conflict between ‘rich space’ and ‘poor space’ (i.e. the situation of Mercury)? If the whole thing is ruled by a corpocracy—and we know it’s a cutthroat environment judging by ep 1—then what about the people from the same space colony who work for different companies? (e.g. if Peil Technologies and a 3rd-rate company both have established bases on Planet A, what are the dynamics like on Planet A between the employees of these 2 groups? Is there really a concept of ‘civilians’ that aren’t in some way part of the corporate structure?)

Also, I do kind of wonder what the slow acting spray that the bullies used are for in the wider world-building context. Again, I think a lot of the details and concepts are very cool, but I hope it ties back into the bigger picture as opposed to just being there for the Rule of Cool.

#gwitch spoilers #gundam #gwitch #ric reacts

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